


all you never say

by savingophelia (briennesbeauty)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Love Confessions, One Shot, So it's ok, Soulmate AU, a bit introspective and character studyish at the start, also i ramble sadly about stable queen for a bit because i literally can't help myself, but then there's all the soft swan queen endgame content, canon divergence I guess, follows canon ish through to season six, kind of, then it’s just soft yearny sappy gay fluff, tw brief mention of robin/regina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27939606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briennesbeauty/pseuds/savingophelia
Summary: The mark on Regina’s ribs has always been more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s taken her a long time to give up on it.soulmate au where the most important thing your soulmate says to you is tattooed somewhere on your body.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 270





	all you never say

**Author's Note:**

> ok since everyone (me) liked the last soulmate au so much, i am fully back on my bullshit 
> 
> this time we’re back with a soulmate au where the most important thing your soulmate says to you is written somewhere on your skin, so you don’t know who they are until they’ve said that. 
> 
> this is such a mess, so long and all over the place because I just got in my feelings about Every Canon SQ Moment and yeeted my feelings about them into this, but there’s a plot in here somewhere if u really look for it

Emma Swan does not believe in soulmates. 

(Well. She believes in them the way she believes in, say, the existence of the _Twilight_ movies. She knows they exist, but she also knows they are in no way meaningful, well-constructed or at all relevant to her, and she has absolutely no interest in seeing them for herself.)

Sure, she knows a few people who found theirs and they seem happy. But she knows infinitely _more_ people who never found them, probably never will, and are just as happy – if not more. She’s a grown ass woman, and she doesn’t need some dumb divine tattoo telling her what to do with her love life. 

However.

She has always thought her soul-mark was kind of cool.

 _You saved me_ , it reads, in flowing script around her upper arm. Ever since she was old enough to understand what it meant – maybe four or five, lying, bored in some shitty children’s home with her little feet dangling over the edge of the couch, fingers reaching under the ratty sleeve of her t-shirt to see the words – she’s thought it was cool. It means she’ll save someone, somehow, someday, in a way that is too important for the universe to keep quiet about. 

She spends hours as a kid laid out on her terrible hard mattress in that home, sleeve pushed up to her shoulder, imagining all the ways she might save her soulmate. Maybe she’ll pull them out of a fire, like she saw on the news, or rescue them from bad guys or catch them from falling, like a superhero. As she grows up she figures that one might be physically impossible, but still. It's fun to think about. (Sometimes her imagination runs away with her and carries her to a future where she – skinny, scabby-kneed, orphan Emma – is a real hero, respected, revered, cheered on with wild applause by a smiling crowd.) 

The soul-mark becomes less cool as she gets older. Her stupid fantasies of heroism fade and eventually fall away. _Who’d want to be a hero?_ Emma wonders. She’s fourteen and staring blankly at a fuzzy TV screen, which plays the final scenes of _The Empire Strikes Back_. She got into another fight at school, and now she’s being sent away again. Her jeans are ripped, her knee skinned, her knuckles bloody. She feels embarrassed, and angry at herself, and also not – this is just the way it is. There are no heroes, and if there were, she definitely isn’t one of them, and she wouldn’t want to be. The tattoo on her arm doesn’t mean anything, really. 

At her fourth high school, the idiot kids notice during gym class and think it’s funny, and even though she scowls at them and tugs her plaid shirt firmly over her shoulders in the corridors and doesn’t care what they think, it still makes her stomach twist. She lays awake in bed that night, listening to her idiot foster parents argue downstairs, and wishes she could just scrub the stupid thing off.

But things get better – gradually, fitfully. Her angsty teenage hatred of the mark cools into pure indifference. She doesn’t even think about it when she’s on the streets; when she’s laughing wildly in a yellow car with a boy who likes her; when she’s in prison because of that boy, who she hates; when she’s sweating and screaming and swearing her way through the birth of the child she can’t have. It’s nothing, compared to all that. Less than nothing. It’s the last thing on her mind. 

And after, when all that mess is behind her and she’s finally kind of stable, settled by herself in a half-empty apartment in the city, the soul-mark is still only a minor annoyance. She doesn’t mind it herself, but she gets kind of sick of people noticing it. She’ll be at a bar, late at night, because she can’t sleep very well and the silence in her apartment is too loud, and the girl leaning close beside her will run a light finger over the words. “ _What are you gonna save me from, babe?_ ” She’ll whisper, with a wry smile and liquor on her breath, and she’s pretty enough that Emma will just roll her eyes and down her drink and it’s never brought up again. 

Once she starts working as a bail bondsman – person? – she starts to see the humour in it. She’ll have some asshole guy’s arm twisted up behind him, ready to cart him off to court, and she has to fight off a smirk because nowadays, the opposite is true. She’s not saving people; she’s condemning them. 

It’s funny. And yet still, still sometimes, she’ll find herself lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, and thinking to herself that maybe… maybe her five year old self wasn’t _entirely_ wrong. Maybe there is something cool about it. _You saved me._ Whoever her soulmate is, if they ever meet – that’s the most important thing they’ll ever say to her, according to the laws of the universe. Which would be kind of epic and make her feel kind of cool. If any of it was real or likely at all. Which it’s not. Obviously.

But then she gets to Storybrooke. And her life goes batshit crazy, and everything she’s ever refused to believe turns out to be true, and, oh, here’s the kicker – 

She is literally called _the saviour_. She has _literally _saved, well, everyone. So that brings her soulmate way closer, but also way further away, because it could honestly be anyone, and that kind of makes her hate it again. Her soulmate might be any one of the citizens of this fairy-tale town, or they might be someone else. Because fate, as evidenced, is on a hate campaign against Emma Swan.__

____

____

-

The mark on Regina’s ribs has always been more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s taken her a long time to give up on it. 

As a child, she never really understood what it meant. Soulmates meant nothing – they were the stuff of storybooks, ballads the travelling bards would sing when they came to play for Mother, that would make little Regina well up, until Mother gave her that look she knew, even at four years old, meant _stop now, or else_. She knew, even before actually being told, that her parents were not soulmates. Father was a prince after all, and it was even rarer for royalty to marry their true soulmate. She’d always known she’d marry – or not – at Mother’s will, for Mother’s gain. She’d always known it was hopeless to dream.

(She remembers being maybe nine or ten, sat in front of the mirror in her bedchamber, shift pushed up past her ribs, reading the words over and over, wondering what they could mean, and who the person who said them might be. She still has no idea how Mother caught her, but she hit her so hard she was never stupid enough to do that again. 

And after all, her mark was longer and wordier than most people’s. 

“It’s lucky that ugly thing stays covered up.” Mother told her once, pointedly eyeing the lettering curling around the side of her ribs as the maid laced her corset up over it.)

And yet she couldn’t help herself. 

Regina was a stubborn dreamer. She wished on ten stars before she realised they didn’t work for her, although she knew it had only taken one for other girls. She called for a fairy godmother six times – the last through tears and blood from a cut lip and the strange ache of Mother’s magic resounding in her bones – before she learned that none of them would come for her. 

(Sometimes, when she’s still half a child, and an idiot, she dreams her soulmate is one of those heroes from the stories, someone good and gallant and _noble_ who will make sense of everything. Who will be the reason none of those other things ever worked – because it had to be _them_.) 

Still, she listens to the stories and waits for a miracle that doesn’t come, until it does. 

It comes in the form of a boy called Daniel, who is half a year older than her and has eyes the colour of the sky in spring and knows how to get even the most skittish of horses to relax with just the gentleness of his voice. He’s tall and penniless and his laugh makes her laugh, no matter how sad or scared she is. He makes her feel real, for the first time. He makes her feel herself. Free and right and worthy. 

She loves him. She loves him, she loves him, she loves him, and she _knows_ that if she just waits long enough, one day he’s going to say those words to her. 

Every time they’re together – slipped off for a stolen hour or two after riding practise or before dinner, hiding out behind the barn or the meadow below the ridge, sat together in the long grass with their fingers entwined and their smiling voices hushed low – Regina knows it’s him. It’s not that she’s eager to hear him say it. She doesn’t need it confirmed this soon. Because she knows, with every fibre of her being, that someday he’ll say it to her. 

He doesn’t get the chance. 

Because Mother murders him in front of her before he can, and when she collapses to her knees in the dirt and holds onto him like a lifeline and kisses him with her tears on his face and her own heart physically _hurting_ , that doesn’t work either. She kisses him with everything she has left in her, but clearly, as always, that is not enough. 

So, at last, she gives up. 

She found her soulmate, and he died. The stillborn words on her ribs have no meaning. She tries not to look at them. Turns away from the mirror when she undresses. Pretends she can’t see her maids tilting their heads slightly to try and read them when they come to put her into her wedding gown. Pretends she doesn’t feel physically ill when her husband runs a dismissive hand over it, on the worst night of her life. Pretends she doesn’t hear when that awful, _awful_ little girl excitedly tells her all about her own and thrusts her pale hand, with the curly words _I will always find you_ stamped along her wrist.

(Rumplestiltskin is the one person in her life who never mentions her soul-mark. Maybe that’s one of the many reasons she buries herself in the brilliant, horrible work that he pushes and pulls and moulds into her. Entombs herself in it.)

For years, she’s given up and she is strong. Kings and kingdoms fall before her. She is powerful and power is freedom, which is all she ever wanted anyway, she tells herself. She hunts Snow White with a fierceness that terrifies everyone including herself. Deep within her blackening heart there are echoes of the little girl that just ached to be loved but learns to ignore them. To be loveless and empty and strong.

When she finally casts the curse and wakes up on a soft mattress in a strange room in a town of her own creation, she feels almost at peace. (Almost. If she doesn’t think too hard.) 

And then she has Henry; Henry, her everything. Henry, who comes into her life and casts such a bright light that everything else is thrown into shade. Henry, her little prince, who sleeps in her bed beside her with his tiny face screwed up and his pink fist wrapped around her finger. Who learns to tie his shoelaces and read her the alphabet and brings her muddy flowers from the garden and drawings he’s made himself. Who teaches her what love really is, beyond small words like _soulmate_ and _destiny_. 

It still catches her off guard, sometimes. 

She’ll be getting dressed for the day or drying off after a shower and she’ll just happen to glance at the mirror and there it is. Of course, written in curling black letters around the side of her ribs, her soul-mark; _You’ve worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed_. 

She still gets a lump in her throat looking at it, for some reason. Brushes her fingertips along the black ink, seamlessly part of her skin. She’s hated that sentence, and ached for it, and ran it through her head too many nights, trying hopelessly to fall asleep. _You’ve worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed_. It makes her heart do strange things. (That someone could care about her happiness like that. That she could have happiness at all. That it could be destroyed, yet again.)

And then there’s the Robin issue. 

Years ago, Tinkerbell stood in front of her and _told her_ he was her soulmate. Of course, Regina’s hand immediately flew to the place on her ribs where the familiar words were inked, but Tink had stopped her. 

“There’s more than one way to be a soulmate,” She cautioned. “A person can have multiple soulmates, or –”

“Spare me the lecture,” Regina had silenced her with a hand, then cringed at the bitterness in her voice. “I know.”

She didn’t really believe she had another soulmate, or that she was even ready to open herself to the idea of love again yet, but that stupid, stubborn spark of hope flared right up inside her hungry heart just like it did when she was a child. So she’d let the fairy fly her over the forests and the rivers and onto the doorstep of a warmly lit tavern. And fear and anger had petrified her, and she hadn’t gone in. And despite everything, she has never been able to bring herself to regret that. 

But now it’s all so much more complicated. 

Because he’s here. In Storybrooke. And maybe it’s the cursed year, or that stupid useless hope again, but she thinks she likes him. Or wants to like him. 

Ever since her curse broke, things have been so uncertain, so fast-moving. Between her mother’s return and Neverland and the long and painful slog to redemption, Regina hasn’t really had time to slow down. And he’s not… _as_ insufferable as she once thought he was. He’s handsome enough, and he has a good heart – too good for her, really, though not so good it scares her, like some people’s (some Saviour’s). And besides. Emma has someone now, sort of, so why shouldn’t she? (She doesn’t know why that thought even occurs to her, but it does.)

There’s something strong and earthy and wholesome about Robin that is strangely comforting and distracting. He likes her, by some undeserved and years-too-late miracle. And he likes the outdoors in a way that reminds her of Daniel, although when he kisses her she doesn’t feel half so much. And yet the fairy dust _said_ he was her soulmate. Some unknown magic _said_ this man has to love her and be important to her and say those infuriating, precious words she carries between her ribs. 

Despite herself, every time she’s with him, she’s waiting for him to say it.

Sometimes it’s almost like she’s on edge, with bated breath, and sometimes it’s just a quiet thing running in the back of her mind. Maybe she is pathetic and desperate, and all the other things Mother thought, but the fairy dust said, and deep down, she is so very tired of being alone. (Deep down, she always has been.) She waits and waits for him to say it, and he never does. 

Eventually she says goodbye to him at the town line. She watches him walk away from her world with his wife and his son at his side – his real family, his good, worthy family – and turns away with a sorrow that cuts her to the core. He never said it, and nothing would have changed even if he had. (It’s almost a relief.)

-

So really, Regina has given up.

She’s not sure if she has enough hope left in her to believe it really was meant to be Daniel all along, but she’s certainly not expecting the words to come from anyone else. 

She’s certainly not hoping they come from anyone, although sometimes someone says something that feels almost too close to the words written on her skin, and it makes her heart vault into her throat for half a second. It’s always the same someone; someone stupid, and gallant, and so noble it makes her sick. Someone with a goofy smile and golden hair and pale green eyes that always seem to be saying more than her mouth is. 

Regina’s not an idiot. She knows better than to ever truly believe it could be true, but sometimes, these days… 

Emma Swan follows her around for days after the Marian incident, with her relentless hope and words like nothing anyone’s ever said to Regina before – words about being unique and special and refusing to give up on her. In spite of herself, it makes something bloom in her chest. Emma finds her when she’s locked herself in her office, even though she’s not told anyone where she’s going. She doesn’t push her or force her, but she leans against the door that separates them – Regina can hear her breathing, see the shadow of her boots in the light under the door – and promises she _can have happiness_. Promises to give her a happy ending. 

Regina can’t speak. She just curls up tighter into herself, her stomach tight and her miserable heart thudding so loud she almost thinks the saviour must be able to hear it through the wall. She drops her head onto her knees and listens to her own breathing, in and out. She’s nearly crying, and she hates herself for being such a mess, and she doesn’t know why the stupid saviour keeps doing this. She doesn’t know why she was holding her breath for a moment, wondering if her next sentence might very well be the one that’s been curled around her ribs since she was born, except that it feels like it would make sense. It feels like it’s… the next logical sentence. 

Regina swallows hard around the lump in her throat and listens to Emma’s footsteps getting further away. When she hears the front door of the building fall shut behind her, a sigh of relief or disappointment falls from her lips. 

She tries to squash it down, this thing, this broken intuition or foolish hope inside her, but Emma just keeps hauling it back up again, without even knowing. 

(She always has done.

From the moment Emma Swan arrived in Storybrooke, she challenged Regina and defied her and shattered the safe monotony of her perfect little world. She terrified her, and infuriated her, but she woke her up, too. Having someone to fight like that, someone who just _assumed_ their place as her equal – it made her feel alive again.  
And even then, when they would happily have killed each other, they were bound together in understanding by their love for Henry. Without ever talking about it, that was just how it was. How could it be any different? The moment his life was in danger, they were a team. A mismatched, dysfunctional one, but a team nonetheless, and a team to be reckoned with. 

But the Saviour kept on surprising her. 

Instead of destroying her like she was supposed to once the curse was broken, she never once stopped protecting her. _For Henry_ , Regina reminded herself. But that only doubled the strange relief, the _warmth_ she felt when Emma Swan offered her rough hand to help herself to her feet, went up against her parents to defend her, pulled her from the hands of an angry mob. 

For a long time, Emma – the saviour, the hero, the strongest woman she knew – was the only one to believe her, to trust her, to see who she was and what she was trying to do. Even tiny things. Inviting her to Granny’s that time and noticing when she’d slipped away. Nobody ever noticed things like that about Regina. Not since Daniel.

And then when they’d started using their magic together… Regina still had no words for what happened between them in the mine, when that damned diamond was about to destroy everything around them. She’d looked at Emma – her fated enemy, the mother of her son – with tears racing down her face and no defences left to her and _begged her_ to let her die as Regina because she knew she was the only person who would understand that, and maybe grant it to her. 

But she hadn’t. Instead, the other woman had turned around and looked her right in the eye and told her, firmly, “Maybe you’re not strong enough. But maybe _we_ are.”

And with the light of the diamond in her fierce, beautiful face, Emma had taken her share of the curse. Together, terrified, with trembling hands, they had done something that should not have been possible. 

Regina thought that Emma would never be able to top that, but every time she fell back in Neverland, exhausted and furious, her shirt clinging to her back with sweat, the blonde would hang back too and check on her. They snapped at each other more than often, but the rising tension pulled taut between them in that godforsaken jungle was only because they both needed their son so badly, and they knew that. That unspoken teamwork was back, stronger than ever before. The first time Emma called Henry _our son_ had melted Regina with something like relief, and gratitude that nearly choked her. 

She still remembers sitting with Henry’s pale body in her lap, snapping at Emma in a voice thick with tears that Henry was _all she had_. And instead of arguing or telling her that what she felt was wrong like everybody else in her life always had done, the blonde woman had crouched down beside her and found her eyes. With a steady, gentle voice, she said, “You’re right. I don’t know how you feel. _So what do you want to do?_ ”

And later, when Henry was okay and they thought they were safe, it was _natural_ to hold him between them. For their hands to brush on his back, his skinny shoulder. Emma, breathless and speechless; Regina near tears; Henry caught happily, exhausted, between them. For a few beautiful moments, the whole world shrunk down to the three of them, united in love and relief. 

So by the time they ended up in the middle of the road, with Pan’s curse on their heels, it was only too natural and easy for Regina to stand there, with Emma’s hands in hers, offering her everything she’s always wanted for herself. A simple, good life for her and Henry. It’s all she could do. She watched them drive away in that stupid yellow car, watched them grow smaller and smaller as the smoke of unknown magic came to choke them all and it was all she could do to keep breathing. She wasn't not sure if she’d ever see either of them again, her son who is her universe, and the only woman she trusts and believes in to raise him. 

But they come back. Despite everything that happens with Zelena – _her sister_ – and Robin and all the rest of it, they find her again. And _again_ , Emma is always there when she turns around, waiting to help her and offer her belief, teamwork, easy understanding that she’s starting to realise no one else _can_ offer. When Henry remembers, Regina thinks it might be the happiest she’s ever been. He has True Love with both his mothers, and that is unspeakably special. 

And then Emma – that brave idiot – stumbles back in time and ruins Regina’s life _yet again_ and for a moment it almost all comes crashing down, this tentative, unspoken family they have made. But the saviour follows her around with words dangerously close to the ones tattooed on Regina’s ribs, and she realises maybe it is more enduring than she wants to believe it is. 

After Robin leaves, it’s Emma who comes to find her at Granny’s, who knows to offer her quiet company and a drink instead of the stale hope she’s so sick of. It’s Emma who stands beside Henry – their son, their beautiful boy – and looks her right in the eyes and _promises_ her once again that she’s going to fight for her. Emma, who chases her around town with fierce determination and ridiculous walkie talkies, obsessed with her safety even while Regina’s the one trying to protect Emma’s heart. Emma worries about her. Emma finds her, even in the depths of that author’s psycho alternate reality, still, _still_ echoing those sentiments about hope and happiness; still not quite in the right order.)

Still, Regina tries not to think about it. 

It’s just a coincidence, she tells herself, every night she spends sleepless, staring at the shadowy ceiling. Every time Emma says something like that, that’s so close it makes her breath catch in her throat. It’s just another fluke, Regina tells herself, until she truly believes it. 

And then the darkness comes untethered and finds her in the middle of the street. 

Regina stands in the eye of the storm, the heart of true darkness – strands of that ancient, cruel magic lashing around her like a cage, whipping up her hair and stinging her eyes. She can barely catch her breath through it, barely make out the figures of Henry and the others through the blackness. It roars in her ears. She can hear them arguing about something, but she can’t make out the words. 

Her heart feels like ice inside her. She really does think, suddenly, that this is how it ends for her, after everything. Captured in darkness. There is no escape now.  
And then suddenly, Emma Swan; charging up to the darkness like an idiot, like every storybook hero that never came when Regina needed them, her white sweater and golden hair flashing through the gaps in the swirling darkness, and suddenly Regina’s heart jerks into her stomach and she knows, with raw panic, what the stupid woman is about to do.

“Emma! _No!_ ” She struggles to catch her breath, to speak through the darkness. “There has to be another way –”

“There isn’t.”

She can see Emma’s face through the flashing darkness, her green eyes shining and determined. The dagger gleaming in her hand. She looks right at her, through the evil that separates them, and finally, finally tells her – 

“ _You’ve worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed_.”

If the darkness weren’t holding her up, Regina would have fallen. 

It’s too much – she can’t breathe, she’s choking on the powerful evil that’s trying to consume her and Emma Swan, the saviour, her _soulmate_ – is going to save her. Hook has run up to her now, is shouting things Regina can’t make out, and she’s glad, because her stomach twists and her tears burn at the corners of her eyes and there’s nothing she can do but try and keep fighting it. 

And then Emma is plunging the dagger into the depths of the dark with all her might, the wind in her hair, the black and blue lights shining off her skin, lighting her up. Her eyes never leave Regina’s, not even as the tendrils of evil begin racing down her arm and winding around her, not even as Regina stumbles backwards and struggles to speak. 

Emma’s eyes stay on hers, _telling_ her how unremorseful she is, how determined and decided. They’re huge and shining, but unyielding, unflinching, and so of course Regina can’t look away either. There’s nowhere to hide. It’s like they’re trying to tell each other everything they’ve never said, just with eyes alone.

And then suddenly Regina’s falling backwards into Robin’s arms, and the darkness has swallowed Emma up and she’s gone, she’s just gone, and there’s silence like all the sound in the world has been sucked into a vacuum – 

The dagger falls neatly to the road with a _clink_. The only light comes from the hazy streetlamps and the far-off moon, but when it glints off the blade the writing etched on it is clear as day. _Emma Swan_ , it reads.

Regina’s hand unconsciously brushes along her ribs, where beneath her clothes and deep in her skin, the same thing is written, just with different words. 

-

All the while she’s the Dark One, Emma knows something has shifted between her and Regina. 

She can see it on Regina’s face every time she looks at her. The brunette is strangely drawn and emotional the whole time they’re in Camelot. Emma just assumes it’s because of what she did – it was a huge thing, to sacrifice her soul for the safety of the woman she barely lets herself stand too close to, especially with Hook there begging her not to. No, Emma tells herself. _It’s fine_. She’s the Saviour, after all. This is what she does. 

(“ _I saved you, now save me._ ” She tells Regina firmly, pressing the dagger that contains the depths of her power into her hand, and she doesn’t even realise how close that is to her own tattoo. All she’s thinking about is how Regina is the one person she can trust with this. To do what’s right for their family, whatever that turns out to be.)

But every time Regina looks at her, her brown eyes seem to be huge and shining with things that neither of them are ready to address. Emma ignores it, because she has to. If she ignores it, nothing will come of it, and they’ll both be better off. Even when she goes against her family to save Robin – a man she can’t fucking stand, if she’s being honest – because it’ll make Regina happy. Even when she’s sat across from her, watching her relive her worst memories in a dreamcatcher, and all she wants to do is reach out and pull her into her arms and hold her - Emma battles it like she battles the darkness. She becomes strong enough that sometimes she thinks she’s just imagining it, whatever it is between them. 

But then Regina corners her by the well, with tears in her dark eyes and a strange determination in her beautiful face and raises the dagger and all but _begs_ her to tell her why she’s clinging to the darkness. Emma thinks that might be the hardest few moments of her life. They’ve never been this close to addressing it, this thing they have always had. This secret story hidden in glances and brief touches and epic gestures of love and sacrifice. She has no idea why now, all of a sudden, Regina is so desperate to bring it to light. Emma keeps her teeth gritted and her jaw clenched and can’t look her in the eye. 

“There’s a difference between not knowing something and not wanting to admit it,” Regina says, in that pleading voice. “The dagger can make you look but you, _you have to choose to see_.” 

Emma chooses not to. 

She balls it up tight and shoves it way down inside her. Camelot is a mess, the dreamcatcher and Henry and Violet is a mess, and everything that happens with Hook is the biggest mess of all. But Regina follows her to the underworld with all the others, regardless. 

Emma keeps ignoring it and ignoring it and refusing to associate the ten thousand times she’s saved Regina with the words that wind around her arm. Even when Regina is standing so close to her she can smell her perfume, in the middle of a messy apartment in New York, with tears shining in her eyes, spilling her soul to her for – what? For Emma to spout some tight-jawed affirmations that she’s good, that she believes in her, which is only a fraction of what she wants to say but is all she can let herself let out. 

She has no idea why Regina gets like this sometimes – ever since that night she took on the darkness for her. It terrifies her, so she tries not to think about it.  
She actually does pretty well, through the separation and return of the Evil Queen, through everything that happens with Hyde and Aladdin and all the rest. She buries herself in Hook – who has jokingly repeated _you saved me_ to her so many times he’s absolutely ruined it – and in being the Saviour. Besides, she’s now also repressing visions of her own death, so you know. Bigger fish to fry, and all that. 

Until. 

Until her stupidest wish creates the stupidest realm yet, and she’s stuck there. She’s everything she’s never wanted to be, a blissful idiot, and soundly ignorant. Until. Regina finds her there too, and though she’s shocked by the appearance of the woman this version of her has been raised to believe is nothing but an Evil Queen, when Prince Henry raises his sword to kill her – 

Something in Emma snaps. 

It breaks the curse. It makes her wake _herself_ up, which should be unheard of, impossible. 

To save her.

“You saved me,” Regina says softly.

Emma doesn’t even realise. There’s too much happening right now. She just tries to shrug it off (the most miraculous thing she’s ever done), swallows against the lump in her throat. “Yeah, well. You came to this crazy place to save me, so it’s only fair, right?”

There’s too much. Too much in her – memories and visions and sickness, weariness and anger and relief, and yes, _love_ , aching, horrible _love_ – for her to realise here and now. Her brain is in survival mode. She doesn’t even think about it, as they trek down to the beach and then through the woods, tracking down August and trying to find a way home. 

(She especially doesn’t think about it when she gathers her courage, squashes down that ever-present pull in her chest and makes herself tell Regina to bring this Robin back home with her. She’s almost glad, that small moment when it seems like Robin isn’t going to appear – she’s gutted, because all she wants is Regina’s happiness, that light in her eyes to be there all the time, but part of her _lifts_ with gladness and that makes her feel sick and heavy and she hates herself for it. She’s glad when Regina asks for a moment alone, then, because being around Regina – sometimes the easiest and most natural thing in the world – is really, really fucking hard these days. 

She stands in the middle of the woods, the smell of rain and damp moss all around her in the dark, and she wishes she could just scream or whack something with her sword because she just feels too much. Too much today.) 

And of course, because this is the day from hell, almost as soon as they stumble back to Storybrooke through that tree she finds herself sword-to-sword with Gideon – her fated killer – in the middle of the street. 

It’s only after all of that, when she finally stumbles home past midnight, tired to her bones. Manages to pull off her boots and hang up her coat and leave her sword leaning safely in the doorway. She collapses into bed, expecting to fall into a long, deep sleep until sometime tomorrow afternoon – but instead she ends up fidgeting, tossing and turning and kicking at the covers, struggling to get comfy. Adrenaline still fires through her veins, sweat still sticks to the back of her neck. 

And she keeps replaying moments from the last few days in her head, images flickering through her brain like a film reel. Her fake parents lying dead and old a few feet away. Her fake son with a sword. Gideon’s face as he vanished her sword and a gleam of victory came into his eyes. Robin’s face, which she never thought she’d see again. And, clearer and sharper than any of the rest – Regina, teary-eyed and staring, after Emma somehow snapped herself out of the curse to save her life.  
No wonder she’s felt so brittle since. That’s something else they share now. 

(Even in her deepest, most unconscious cursed state, something in her _knows_ she has to save Regina Mills. Something about that woman is rooted so deep in her that the very _thought_ of her dying – the split second, panicked, unthinkable thought of it – is enough to make her snap herself out of a curse and make her remember who she is. 

And Regina _knows_ that.)

Emma doesn’t think she’ll ever forget that rush of panic and fury and fear, like ice thrilling through her veins, when their kid lifted his sword at Regina. Or the sudden snap in her, every memory she’s ever had flooding back, her magic snapping to life like lightning, her every instinct coming back into alignment. The crushing relief as the sword clattered to the stone floor. She was _herself_ again, she was Emma Swan. Henry was not a murderer. And Regina was alive. 

Alive and looking at her like that – her brown eyes full of tears and wonder, her full lips parted with breathless shock, stunned and stunning. _You saved me_ ; she’d said. The memory of her voice tugs at something deep in Emma’s guts. She had done a dozen times before. She would a dozen times again, a thousand, however many times she had to. In whatever curse, whatever timeline, whatever version of reality. 

_You saved me._

Emma jerks suddenly upright in bed. 

_Fuck_.

Shoving the covers off, she spins and reaches out to flick on the bedside lamp. Her heart is suddenly pounding. Hunching over the side of the bed, she grabs her left arm in her hand. She’s only wearing a tank top. In the dim yellow lamplight, the curling black script seems to shine against her skin. _You saved me_ , it says, clear as day. The same thing it’s said since she was a baby in a blanket on the side of the road. 

“Fuck,” Emma breathes, tracing her fingertips around the words. 

What the _hell_ is she supposed to do now? 

-

She doesn’t sleep much that night, or any of the nights after that.

She keeps rubbing her thumb anxiously across the tattoo around her arm, the tattoo of the words that woke her up and broke her heart just a few days ago, the words that she’s ignored and wondered about all her life, words she’s never even let herself _imagine_ coming out of the mouth of Regina Mills.

She lies in her bed staring up at the ceiling in the dark and drumming her fingers on her bicep and thinking about all the times – all those times with Regina, when it felt like they were teetering on the edge of something. 

Standing close enough to the woman she hated that she could count her long eyelashes and feel her breath against her and wondered if they were about to fuck or fight or both. Running all over town protecting her, _for Henry_ , but also because to not do so was unthinkable. Watching her dark brown eyes fill with tears, or her beautiful mouth brighten in a genuine smile, real and vulnerable in ways Regina rarely was in front of anyone else. The first time they used their magic together, the way her whole body had shook as pure power surged from her palms, the way they’d looked at each other and shared that euphoria and that presence that transcended words like _fate_ and _destiny_ and _hero_ and _villain_. 

The tiny jokes they shared in Neverland, and the mother’s determination that bound them together in ways nobody else could understand. Holding Henry between them, _their son_. They moved the damn _moon_ together, for Gods’ sake. How beautiful and selfless and herself Regina had been, holding her hand in the middle of the street as a curse crept up on them, ready to give up everything for their son. And then… the friendship. The genuine care, the gentle teasing, the lunch breaks and missions in the Bug, the shots in Granny’s, the ease she never expected to spring up between them. 

(The way it takes all her willpower to tear her eyes away from her sometimes, because she’s wearing that dress, or the scent of her perfume is drifting over, or her dark hair is shining and the sun from the window is hitting her just right, and she is so, so beautiful. The way Emma's heart clenches and twists at the very thought of her in danger. The way she felt whenever she saw Robin’s hands on her, however happy she knew she was.) 

Plunging herself into the deepest darkness to rescue her, because that was all that mattered. Knowing she’d be willing to do it all over again in an instant if that meant Regina would be okay. 

Finding her and finding her and finding her over and over again, in Neverland, in Storybrooke, in the past, in the author’s fucked up alternate dimension, in the empty realm of her stupidest wish. Looking back, it seems like every road she’s ever taken – no matter how insane – has always, without fail, led her right back to Regina. 

_This can’t be happening _, Emma thinks, for the third night in a row, her stomach in knots. _This can’t be what’s happening_.__

____

____

But now it seems like it’s the only thing in the world that makes sense. 

-

Regina finds her in Granny’s a few days later, slouched at the table in the window, a mug of coffee turning cold and congealing in front of her, staring intently at nothing. A thread of concern tugs at Regina’s stomach at the sight of her – Emma has been distant ever since things settled down. (Emma has actually been distant ever since she sacrificed herself and said the words she’s waited all her life to hear, if she’s being honest with herself, but still.) It feels different; odd. Yesterday, when she came to drop Henry off at the mayor’s house, she barely looked at her, barely _spoken_ , and when she did she kept hesitating and fumbled her words.

So Regina pushes gently through the door to the café, the little bell jingling her entrance. The blonde doesn’t seem to notice, not even when she’s right by her table. 

“Emma?” Regina tries, very gently. 

Emma’s head jerks up, those green eyes wide and disoriented. She looks at Regina like she’s just been woken up. “Regina. Hey.”

“Are you alright?” Regina’s brows knit into a frown. “You seem a little…”

“I’m fine.” Emma swallows down a big gulp of coffee and fights a grimace, slamming the mug back down on the table a little too hard. “Just tired.”

“Emma…” Regina’s not convinced. She pulls out the chair opposite the saviour and sits herself down tentatively. “It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot this past few weeks. Hell, years. We all have.” She takes a breath, trying to speak softly. “It’s okay if you need a rest.”

“Regina, seriously,” Emma shoots her a look, and then lifts her mug for another disgusting sip of coffee. “I’m the saviour. I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Regina says, unconvinced. Unsure what to say next, she stares down at her hands for a moment. The fluorescent lights shine off her burgundy nail polish. She can feel Emma’s eyes on her, lingering in ways she often wonders if she’s imagining or not. “What?” 

“What?” 

“You’re staring at me,” Regina says bluntly. 

Startled, Emma stands up abruptly. Her chair screeches against the floor. “I have to go,” She swings her leather jacket up off the back of her chair and tugs it on with rough hands. “I’ll see you round.” 

“See you round,” Regina echoes, watching her hurry away, and the door swing shut behind her, with a strange, unsettled feeling in her stomach. She’s left alone at the table in the window, looking out at the grey sky beyond the glass, wondering what that was all about. 

-

It’s later – much later – when Regina’s startled by a knock on her front door. 

Frowning, she leans over the arm of the couch and checks the time on her phone. It’s nearing midnight. She should be in bed really, but between her trip to hell and her evil alter ego running around causing havoc, she’s had practically no time to devote to the running of her town, and she keeps getting caught up in paperwork late into the night. But the knock is loud and clear, and sends a funny feeling running down her spine. 

Setting aside her files and taking off her glasses, Regina stands and belts her robe tighter around herself – she’s only wearing her pyjamas underneath, certain she’d be able to just trudge up to bed when she’d finished working. She’s not wearing any makeup either, but that's fine. A knock on the door this time of night never means anything good. Most likely, she has bigger problems to worry about now. 

She goes to the door quickly, expecting Snow or Zelena or someone bearing bad news about some new curse or dread villain – and opens it to be met with Emma Swan, standing alone out on the doorstop in the hazy yellow light from the porch. 

“Emma,” Regina blinks, startled. Immediately, her heart vaults a little higher in her chest, and her stomach squirms. She’s sure this is about whatever the hell happened in the diner earlier. 

Emma’s still wearing her old jeans and red jacket, her golden hair pulled down from its ponytail and frizzing into natural curls over her shoulders. She’s tapping one boot anxiously against the step, one hand hooked through her belt loop. Her pale face preoccupied, her green eyes restless. 

“Hey,” She says, and finally meets Regina’s eyes. 

“Are you okay?” Regina asks her cautiously. “It’s late.” 

“I’m fine, I just –” Emma’s eyebrows draw into a deep frown. She swallow, glancing over her shoulder. “Can I come in?”

Out of nowhere, Regina is remembering that first night they met, all those years ago, standing in almost this exact spot. (She remembers arguing with her here too, when she was the Dark One. A charged and electric argument that had her shaky and tearful for hours afterwards, lying in bed thinking about her son and her saviour and the stupid fucking soul-mark on her ribs.) A shiver runs down her spine. The air is cool, the half-moon high and distant. 

“Of course,” She manages, with a small smile, and holds the door open. 

“Thanks,” Emma mutters as she walks through, boots clacking softly against the floor, her breath misting slightly in the night air. 

When the front door clicks shut behind them, something drops in Regina’s stomach. She feels oddly cornered. Her mouth is dry. “Is there something you wanted, Emma? Henry’s in bed, so we have to be quiet.”

“Course,” Emma nods, her voice dropping. Something else crosses her face as she glances up towards the ceiling, above which their son is safe in bed. 

Regina opens her mouth, about to say something, when Emma turns suddenly on her heels, looks her right in the eyes and demands, breathlessly, “What’s your soul mark?”

Regina’s heart drops into her stomach. _She knows_. Sudden heat flushing through her cheeks, Regina takes a breath and fights to smooth herself back to composure. “Why?”

Emma is relentless – her green eyes restless and alive with light, pinning her in place. “What is it, Regina?” Her voice is suddenly soft with more than just whispering, and there’s a look on her face almost like pleading. 

Regina swallows hard, fighting with her own urge to snap at her, to tell her it’s none of her business and lock herself away in her bedroom and try to forget. Instead, she takes a deep, steadying breath, and makes herself meet the saviour’s eyes.

Her fingers almost shaking, she undoes the belt of her robe, and pushes up the silky hem of her pyjama top, just enough to bare that strip of skin across her ribs. Goosebumps prickle over her, even though it is warm here in her hallway. She just looks up at Emma, more scared than she’s ever been, a lump in her throat the size of a fist. 

She watches, frozen, as Emma ducks down slightly to see. The saviour's hand reaches out as if to touch her exposed skin, then thinks better of it and lingers awkwardly in the space between them (still, Regina can almost feel it). Golden brows knit close as her eyes finally trace over the words she said herself, not too long ago. Regina can’t help it – her eyes fall closed, and she squeezes them shut, her breath held, unable to look, to face this moment that she has always known was coming. 

Something like electricity or magic sparks over her skin as she feels Emma’s hands gently moving hers, letting the silky fabric of her camisole fall back into place.  
Then Emma drops her hands almost abruptly. “Look at me, Regina.”

Regina does, though she is terrified. They’re so close, she can see every one of her eyelashes. She could count those pale barely-there freckles by her nose. The last time they’d been this close, they were probably trying to kill each other. 

Slowly, gradually, Emma takes off her leather jacket, her green eyes never leaving Regina. She holds it awkwardly in one hand. Underneath, she’s wearing one of her old tank tops. Immediately, Regina’s eyes flit to the elegant writing curled around her bicep. 

“Do you remember what you said to me?” Emma asks. “When you woke me up.”

“You woke yourself up,” Regina says, stupidly, because it’s all she can. “With your magic.”

“Because of you.” Emma tells her, a strange urgency crossing her face. “Do you remember what you said?” 

Regina shrugs a tiny shrug, the tension in her stomach almost crippling. She just shakes her head. She wants to take a step back, but there’s nowhere to go except into the wall, and that brings up a whole other set of problems. For some reason, tears are burning at the corners of her eyes. “No.” She manages.

“You do.” Emma says, bringing her arm forward so that the words inked there shine in the light. _You saved me_ ; it says. Regina’s always known that’s what it says. She just hadn’t realised it was her who’d said it. 

“You must have known for a while,” Emma’s voice is soft. “Your mark, that was a long time ago, I…” 

“Emma, please –”

“That’s why you were so weird in Camelot. And all that time after, I just…” Emma shakes her head. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because.” Regina struggles to keep her voice down, to keep the tears behind her eyes were they belong. “I was scared. And I didn’t – I didn’t know whether you’d –”

“That’s the most important thing I ever said to you,” Emma says, almost wonderingly. “Out of everything.” 

The intensity of her green eyes on hers is almost too much to bear – Regina can feel the tears welling to the surface now, slipping down her cheeks, and she can only nod. 

“I think it’s the most important thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Regina confesses quietly. When she looks back up at Emma, the softness in the other woman’s face is almost like an ache in her. “What you did for me, then – what you do for me – no one’s _ever_ treated me the way you treat me. Fought for me, like that.” Her voice breaks, a little. “Put _me_ first. And I knew, then – I think maybe I’d known before, I just didn’t want to admit it – but I couldn’t say anything in case you were mine, but I wasn’t yours, because why would I be yours? Why would the Evil Queen be the Saviour’s soulmate? It’s ridiculous. And even if I were, that wouldn’t mean you’d want me like that –”

“I’m your soulmate.” Emma says, quietly, but finally, certainly. “And you’re mine.” 

Regina nods, her arms wrapped tight around herself. 

Emma’s face becomes sheepish, scared, impossibly brave. “And I’m also in love with you.”

Regina looks up at her, breath lost somewhere in her throat, tears spilling down her cheeks. She doesn’t know what to say, what to do. “Emma…” 

“I think I’ve been in love with you for a really long time.” 

There’s a charge of something in the air between them, like there always is. Some spark of electricity or magic. 

And suddenly they’re both surging forwards, Regina throwing her arms around Emma’s neck at the same time Emma’s arms wind around the brunette’s waist and pull her closer, and for a moment they just stand in the hallway where they first met, holding each other as tight as they possibly can. Regina’s face buried against Emma’s warm shoulder, her tears wet against the cotton strap of her tank top, tangled blonde hair stuck to her cheek. She closes her eyes and breathes in the smell of her. The feel of those strong arms around her, her heart beating against hers. It’s better than she ever let herself imagine it would be. It feels right. It feels safe. It feels like _home_. Regina’s arms squeeze around her, trying to press herself even closer. Emma’s hands are on her back, one thumb brushing gentle circles against her spine. She can feel her breath on the top of her head, against her hair.

 _This_ is why they’ve never hugged before, Regina thinks, burying herself in the crook of the taller woman’s neck. This is why. If it felt like this, she would never have let go. If it felt like this, it would have really been undeniable. 

When they finally pull apart a little, Regina looks up at sees that Emma looks tearful too, but she breaks out into the most beautiful, ridiculous smile that lights up her green eyes and dimples her cheeks and makes Regina laugh, almost, because it’s stupid, really. It’s funny, and it’s horrible, and it’s absurd, and it’s not. 

It’s right. This is _right_. 

One of Emma’s hands is still on the side of her waist, warm and comforting. The other comes up gently, tentatively, to slide against her cheek. Those green eyes seek hers, eyebrows slightly raised in questioning. “Can I?” 

Regina’s heart nearly bursts at that, at her asking. She just smiles again. She can’t help it. She nods once, twice. And then she barely has time to close her eyes before Emma’s lips are pressing against hers, warm and soft, at long last. Something like relief washes over her when Emma kisses her, mouth moving gently but firmly in perfect tandem with hers, something like homecoming. The hand on her face is warm, and every time Emma does that thing with her tongue sparks fizz up through her. 

“Took us long enough.” Emma says softly, with the slightest grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. Her breath falls in warm puffs against Regina’s lips. “You know, for a saviour and a queen, we really took our time figuring that one out.” 

“Well, you hardly made it easy.” Regina remarks, one perfect brow lifting. 

“Me?” Emma retorts. “Sorry, which one of us said ‘ _you saved me_ ’ as their most important thing to the _literal saviour?_ ”

Regina rolls her eyes, but the corners of her mouth twitch like she’s suppressing a smile. “It’s not as if it were my choice.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’d have chosen something much more original,” Regina assures her haughtily, and it makes Emma laugh and raise an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, like what?”

“Like…” Regina searches a moment. “Miss Swan, get the hell out of my town.”

Emma’s really laughing now, snorting through her nose like she did when she was a kid. “I’m pretty sure you’re paraphrasing.”

“The sentiment’s the same.” Regina insists. She leans her head back against the wall and looks up, and when her dark eyes find Emma’s, they’re impossibly warm. “What about you? What would you rather have permanently marred my body with?”

“Okay, firstly, _nothing_ is marring _your_ body –”

“Emma,” Regina’s laughing now, glancing away from her a moment as her cheeks colour unexpectedly, prettily pink. 

“Shut up, I’m not being weird. I’ve just spent the last six years running around after _the hottest woman on the planet_ without being able to say anything about it –”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Regina tries to say, but she’s still blushing, and she can’t even try and hide the smile on her face now. She’s just proving Emma’s point with that smile, really. 

“– and secondly, I definitely would have picked something from the _get out of my town_ days. Maybe a, ‘ _you have no idea what I’m capable of_ ’.” She puts on a fake serious voice for that, and then starts laughing again. She feels oddly dizzy. “Would have saved us a lot of time.”

“Would it?” Regina tilts her head. “Because if that _had_ been written on me all my life, and when I finally heard it, it came from the mouth of the woman invading my town, attacking my apple tree and trying to steal my son, I’m pretty sure I would have written it off as a fluke.”

“Mmm,” Emma nods, mock-serious. “We are experts in denial.”

Regina nods, and a slight crease appears between her brows. Her dark eyes soften, flutter downward for a second as she hesitates, seeming to gather her courage for something. When she looks back up at Emma, she asks, quietly, “What made you stop? Denying it, I mean. For so long, I thought we’d just never…”

Suddenly, there’s a lump in Emma’s throat. “I realised. What you said, in the wish realm.” Her hand darts to the words tattooed around her bicep, unbidden, an old instinct. Her fingers brush the curves of the letters, and a strange smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “All my life, I’ve gone between thinking my mark was super cool or just super lame. But all jokes aside, I do get it. Why that’s the most important thing, out of everything.”

Regina glances down at her feet, waiting patiently for her to carry on. 

“Because the thought of you dying make me wake myself up. In that second when Henry – that Henry –” Emma falters, struggling to squash the enormity of that realisation into words. “I _woke myself up_ from a curse because somehow I knew I couldn't lose you. I remembered who I was, myself, to save you. How is that even possible?”

Regina just looks up at her, with her brown eyes wide and hopelessly soft. The hand that rests on Emma’s shoulder strokes softly down her arm, to the record of her words. “You know how.”

“Yeah,” Emma breathes, as her stomach unknots, and warmth floods her chest. “I guess I do.” 

She pauses a second, her hand coming up – very gently – to brush a stray strand of dark hair back behind Regina’s ear and lingers there. She swears her fingertips tingle where they skim her soft, soft skin. For a moment her breath sticks in her throat. That she’s allowed to do this. That this is _Regina_ she’s touching, and she’s not just allowing it, but closing her eyes leaning into it.

“I think…” Emma whispers, threading her fingers through Regina’s dark hair. “I’ve always known, deep down.” 

“Me too,” Regina confesses, in the tiniest voice. Her brown eyes are sparkling, never leaving Emma’s green ones for a moment. “I think that’s why I fought you so hard.”

A smile breaks over Emma’s face and fills her chest with warmth. 

“What are we going to do?” Regina whispers, before she can say anything else.

“What do you mean?”

“What are we going to _do?_ ” The brunette repeats. “I spent so long trying not to be in love with you, I never even thought about what would happen if we could be. What are we going to tell Henry? And everyone? And – oh my god, you still have Hook – I shouldn’t be –”

“Regina. Hey.” Emma quiets her by cupping her face softly, her thumb stroking out across her cheek. Green eyes find brown, and she pauses a moment, searching for the right words. “Don’t worry about any of that right now. Please don’t. I know things are complicated, but it’ll all work out. We’re soulmates, after all. The whole universe is rooting for us. And if we’re being honest, I think Henry has been too. And maybe my mom. It doesn’t matter – they’ll understand, once we all just sit down and talk about it.” She swallows, suddenly flushed with heat. “Which is going to be a nightmare...”

Regina nods weakly at that, and though there’s still a shadow of panic in her face, her eyes are fixed firmly on Emma.

“And as for Hook –” Emma tries not to grimace. “I should have ended it with him a long time ago. I should never have let it _start_ , honestly, but I just… I was just stupid and it went on too long and it was easier to just keep on pretending it was what I wanted because I thought I couldn't have you.” She brushes a thumb across Regina’s cheekbone again and tries a tiny smile. “I’ll end it first thing. I’ll end it for you.”

Despite herself, Regina’s eyes are filling with tears again. Wordlessly, she wraps her arms around Emma’s neck and pulls her close. Emma’s arms find their way around her waist, her hands pressed against her back, relishing the warmth of her. She closes her eyes a moment and thinks she’ll never get used to this. Regina’s hair is soft and smells faintly of some sweet shampoo, and herself. She’s warm, and her chin fits perfectly over the crook of her shoulder. She can’t believe she’s allowed to do this. To take her time and notice these things. 

She’s grinning like an idiot when they pull back, and she can’t quite tear her hands off the brunette’s waist. “Are you okay?” 

Regina nods. The most beautiful smile is playing over her lips; it lights up her whole face and sparkles in her dark eyes. “I’d say I’m more than okay.” 

“Good,” Emma murmurs, and then they’re both leaning in and suddenly they’re kissing again, warm mouths moving perfectly in time with one another. Emma’s heart is soaring. Regina’s hand rests gently against the side of her face. She still can’t quite believe this is happening, despite what the words they’ve carried on their bodies have been telling them all their lives. 

Kissing Regina is everything she’s never let herself imagine it would be. It feels like magic. Literally, like magic. Like the time they stood side by side and moved the moon with their shared power. Kissing Regina makes Emma realise that every other kiss in her life had been wrong. 

When they finally pull apart, Emma slides her hands around from the sides of the brunette's waist to the small of her back, and Regina leans in, laying her forehead gently against Emma's. She can hear her exhale, feel the soft warm puff of it against her own lips. For weeks or for minutes, they stay like that, their tired eyes closed, hearts thudding, just relishing this small quiet moment they have found here. Tomorrow can wait. The magic, the monsters, the men to be broken up with - they can all wait. 

Right now it's just the two of them - two soulmates, and their son upstairs, asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> if you got to the end, congrats!!! and thank you!!
> 
> if you somehow liked this, you should try my other soulmate au one shot ‘rise and fall’ which is way more coherent.


End file.
